Week 32

My big news for this week -- I'm now snoring to Emile's dismay and according to him, like a freight train. I'm not stuffed up or anything -- just snoring. I'm sure it's because the baby is putting more pressure on my chest/body now. I think he may have to get ear plugs soon. Or he's just getting a taste of how frequently I'm getting up each night anyways to go to the bathroom and how much we'll be waking up when the baby comes anyways :)

Our little girl is probably about 4-4.5 pounds now! Her irises are now responsive to light, dilating and contracting as needed. Due to deposits of fat under the skin, her skin is now pink rather than red. Her nails are now long enough to reach to the tip of her fingers or beyond and may need trimming as soon as she's born so she doesn't scratch herself. A loud noise near me may actually cause our little one to jump.

On Monday, I had my 31 week appointment, this time with Dr. Gaines. My mom was still in town that morning so I had her come with me. She got to hear our daughter's heartbeat with the Doppler. I'm sure she enjoyed having that opportunity given how far away we live from each other. It was nice having her be there for that. Dr. Gaines confirmed that I am feeling Braxton Hicks contractions. He stated that if I have more than 7 in one hour I should lie down on my left side for another hour and count if again I have more than 7. If I do, I'm supposed to call them but so far I'm not having them that frequently, maybe 4-5 an hour and not every hour. I also spoke with Dr. Gaines about the swelling I'm encountering occasionally now. As expected, there isn't much I can do about it but drink enough water and rest up. He did confirm that my bloodwork, weight gain and urine samples didn't indicate I had pre-eclampsia which is great. So I'm just stuck with the typical pregnancy swelling for awhile. I did stop wearing my rings last Sunday. He also confirmed that she's still head down. Overall, everything is going as expected and I'm right on track. I didn't like Dr. Gaines, however, as much as the last two doctors; however, he may just take some time to get used to.

This past Wednesday, Emile and I started watching our birthing DVDs. I'm so relieved to finally be looking into these items. As I've mentioned before, we decided to DVDs from Carolina Childbirth Classes and then meet with the instructor for a 2 hour session after because all the classes were full at the hospital when we moved here and the class dates for Carolina Childbirth were too close to my due date. The DVDs are just recordings of her at home classes. So far the items she's taught are things I've already read in the books I've gotten but it's still useful to listen to her go over them again. We're both glad though that we didn't end up driving the hour to go to her class -- so far the DVD is doing the trick.

On Wednesday, the guy who put up the chair rail and backer board in the downstairs rooms of our house came to put up chair rail in the nursery for us. It looks great. Now all we need to do is prime and paint it -- then the room is ready for decorating!! I can't wait!

Today I bought our cloth diapers! I'm so excited to finally have that taken care of. There is a Women's Birth Center in Chapel Hill that sells them so I didn't have to order them on-line. After doing a lot of research and asking around, I decided to start with the following items:

• 24 chinese pre-fold cloth diapers
• 6 Kissaluvs newborn fitted cloth diapers
• 2 BumGenius 3.0 cloth diapers
• 6 newborn prowraps
• 4 small Bummis Super Whisper Wraps
• 24 flannel wipes
• 1 concentrated Kissaluve diaper lotion potion
• 3 Snappis
• 1 Bumgenius diaper sprayer
• 1 diaper pail
• 2 diaper pail wet bags
• 1 wet bag for diaper bag

If you're curious as to what all these items are, check out the following websites:

http://www.cottonbabies.com/

http://www.jilliansdrawers.com/

Week 31 -- 8 Months

I have now completed my 7th month of pregnancy and am starting my 8th month! Wow! The biggest change for me this week was on Thursday night I noticed my feet and hands are starting to swell up. This was a little disconcerting for me. More than likely, it's due to all the time I've been spending lately sitting between my hours in front of the computer for work and the hours I've been spending driving for work and on airplanes recently. This isn't helping my circulation or the fact that my tailbone and butt hurt all the time now from sitting. Luckily, I think my last flight before the baby is born was earlier this week when I went to Ohio for work. Now that we're going to be spending more time at home with more relaxed weekends, I'm hoping to get in more walks and pilates workouts in hopes of helping my circulation. In addition, I'm trying to drink even more water and put my feet up more at night.

From how my friends have described it, I'm pretty sure I've also been experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions the last week or two -- my whole front part of my stomach will periodically become super hard and tight. This lasts for about 30 seconds to a minute and then goes away. It's definitely not her body pushing out as that feels very different.

Our baby probably measures about 18 inches long from head to toe and weighs about 3.5 pounds right now. Rather than hearing vibrations, her nerve endings in her ears are connected now so that she can hear distinct sounds, like familiar voices and music. This week, a layer of fat will form underneath the thin, wrinkly skin. She'll also start practicing opening her eyes and breathing.

My parents drove into town for this Easter weekend. They are our first house guest! It was great to finally get to show our house to part of our family. It was great having them here. My dad was also kind enough to help Emile paint the nursery yesterday and today. The first lavender color I picked for the top half of the walls turned out to be much more purple than it appeared on the sample card. So they repainted it today with a light shade of lavender that looks so much better -- exactly what I was hoping for. We're going to have the guy who put up the chair rail in the rest of the house put up chair rail in the nursery on Friday. Then I can finish decorating!! I can't wait -- I'll post photos of the finished room soon. Here are some photos of their painting adventure.

While Emile and my dad painted, my mom and I started organizing all the baby items we received from family and friends plus those that Emile and I have purchased recently. We then put together a list of remaining items I will need to get in the next few weeks before our little girl arrives. I'm looking forward to getting everything put into the nursery and for her to start using the great gifts we've received from everyone.

My mom and I also set up in our bedroom the Pack-N-Play we received from Emile's aunt and cousin. We'll be using the PNP as our daughter's bed for the first few months after our her birth instead of the crib in the nursery so that she's close to us.

Week 30

My last week of Month 7! This week has been pretty low key pregnancy-wise. She's still moving around but movements seem less significant -- less flips and so forth, more pushes. She definitely responds a lot when I drink grapefruit juice! That gets her moving right away. We've started taping off the nursery in order to paint. My parents are coming next weekend for Easter and luckily, my dad is going to help Emile with painting the nursery. We're planning to do lavender on the top and cream on the bottom, separated by chair rail. We ordered and received recently all the bedding and decorations. I'm looking forward to finally getting the room set up.

Emile and I flew to Minneapolis for the weekend. Emile's mom, Riet, is celebrating her 20th anniversary of her ballet company, The Continental Ballet Company. She had a special performance for it this weekend that Emile, me, my mom and sister all attended. It was wonderful! It's always so enjoyable to see her performances. The baby seemed to really like it also -- every time the music and dancing started, she started moving all over the place -- significantly more than normal. She must be practicing for her lessons already! :) If you're ever in the area, I recommend checking it out: www.continentalballet.com.

Week 29

This past Monday, I had my second appointment at Blue Ridge OB/Gyn -- this time with Dr. Homeister. She was great! I felt really comfortable with her. I spoke with her about my hip pain and she ended up suggesting things I'd already tried -- more pillows, body pillow, etc. She also suggested a physical therapist or chiropractor but I think I'll just work with sleeping differently. I've started trying to sit more in a cross-legged position to stretch in preparation for birth. Unlike before getting pregnant, it hurt a lot to sit like that. I'm guessing it's because my joints and muscles have moved so around so much that they're not used to it anymore so I think the stretching will help.

I also started speaking with Dr. Homeister about my "birth plan" which for now, I'm thinking will be trying to avoid an epidural, pitocin and c-section -- we'll see if I stick with giving birth without the epidural. :) Dr. Homeister stated that although about 80% of their patients do give birth using an epidural, they would work with me to avoid it if that is what I choose.

Dr. Homeister also told me that our little girl is positioned head down with her body leaning more to the left side -- this makes sense when I consider where most of the kicks and pushes are that I feel. Due to the lack of space available to her now, she is making fewer big movements, like somersaults, and more small movements of the arms and legs.

I also had my 1-hour glucose test to check for gestational diabetes. They have you drink about 300 mL of this orange drink which I thought would be worse than it actual was by the way others have spoken. But it was just like an orange drink from McDonalds. After sitting for an hour after the drink, I had blood taken. This past Thursday, I found out that I passed the 1-hour test -- yay!! No gestational diabetes!

They also gave me my RhoGam shot because I have O- blood and Emile has B+ (and thus, our baby will more than likely have + blood). Nothing big -- just another shot in my arm. I'll have another one after she's born.

Our baby now weighs about 3 lbs! I'm measuring 29 cm from my pelvic bone to my breast bone -- right where I should be!

Week 28 -- My Baby Shower

Yesterday, I not only finished my 28th week of pregnancy but my mom and sister threw me a baby shower. Emile and I flew home to Wisconsin from North Carolina on Friday and then we all went to Chicago for the shower on Saturday. We had a great showing of family and friends that were able to make it -- my family, Emile's parents, my grandmother, Aunts Becky, Barbara and Pam, my Uncle Merlin, my cousins Kathy, Lynn, Tara and finacee Mike with their three girls, Kelsey, Addison and Nina, Christopher and his wife Laurie, Cameron and his wife Mandy and my soon-to-be cousin-in-law Steph (she's marrying my cousin David in August), and two of my friends Stacy and Courtney (who brought her daughter Katlyn).

My mom and sister planned the baby shower to be in Chicago so friends and family could take advantage to being in the area to see the sites and so forth which many did including Emile and I (we went up in the Sears Tower with our families after the shower). The baby shower itself was at Buca's -- the food was wonderful and the venue worked out really well! We, of course, had a few baby shower games and my mom made "baby shower" coloring books for the kids to entertain themselves with. Everything was great and turned out wonderfully! Emile and I are thankful and appreciate all the wonderful baby gifts we received -- each will be very useful! Below is a sample of photos from the baby shower. You can find other photos under the link on the right for Our Photos.

Thanks again for all who were able to attend and to everyone who brought or sent us a baby gift -- we really appreciate it! We're also very thankful of my mom and sister for putting together the baby shower for us! We had a great time!